WRITING A BOOK?
We are often approached by people who are writing a book and would like us to “publish” it for them. This reveals widely-held misconceptions about the publishing industry and processes. If you are writing a book and hope to see it in print, the following information may be helpful.
Printers are not by definition publishers (though a printing firm may also be a publishing firm). Publishing is the process of managing a finished manuscript through to the stage where it is a new book, and taking the financial risk of the project by paying the printer, paying the author royalties and marketing the book. Printers print the book – though they may also assist with various other production phases such as design, typesetting, pre-press and then, following the printing, binding. The Caxton Press assists many self-publishing authors with these services.
There are three ways a book can be published. The most obvious route is where a publishing firm believes a manuscript has good market potential and will publish it under its own brand and pay the author a fee and/or royalties. Most books you see in bookstores and libraries are published in this way.
The second way a book can be published is where the author funds the process him or herself. This is called self-publishing (or sometimes ‘vanity publishing’), and is commonly undertaken by people who want, and can afford, to have just a few copies of their book produced for family and friends. It is not unknown, however, for prominent authors to publish their own material.
Publishing can be a very expensive process, especially if many books are to be produced, if there is a lot of colour printing involved or if the finished book needs an ‘up-market’ look. In the small New Zealand market, too, the necessary economies of scale may not be there. A smaller print run means higher unit (i.e. per book) costs. This is why publishing companies are very choosy about what they decide to publish. Everyone has heard about authors bemoaning rejection slips. These are a reality in the world of writing, because a publisher may proceed to publish less than one in a hundred of the manuscripts it receives.
And remember, before a manuscript is submitted to a publisher for consideration, it should already have been looked at by a manuscript assessor who will tell the author if they think it is good enough to submit to a publisher (The New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors (NZAMA) can be contacted through their co-ordinator Barbara Else. The address is, PO Box 29-023, Ngaio, Wellington. Email: barbara@elseware.co.nz). Some authors may also have a professional editor go through their manuscript before submitting it to a publisher, but this may end up being wasted expenditure —it is a better idea to submit to a publisher and find out what degree of editing (or rewriting) the publisher thinks the work needs.
If you feel confident that your work is good enough to warrant submission to a publisher, it will probably be best to work through a literary agent. Literary agents act as liaisons between authors and publishers, and they tend to be very well connected in publishing circles and will know which publisher(s) will or should look at your work. The third road to a published book is halfway between the first two routes. A publishing company may believe a manuscript is worth publishing but does not wish to assume all of the commercial risk itself and will thus ask the author for a contribution towards the costs. This is sometimes called subsidy publishing. The Caxton Press has helped many authors see their work in print through such arrangements. Sometimes it is a fulfilment of an ambition ‘to be published’, or it may be a life story to be left behind as a legacy. These have been genuine cases, and some authors are in a position to invest a budgeted sum of money in their project.
Finally a word of caution: if publishers have rejected your work, it is highly unlikely you will reap any financial reward from publishing it yourself. Publishers are skilled, experienced and internationally-connected marketers with intimate knowledge of the book market, and are thus very good judges of what people will or will not buy. So before turning your manuscript into a finished book, investigate all the costs thoroughly and expect to recoup only a very small percentage, if any.